Consumers purchase inflatable balloons throughout the year to celebrate birthdays, holidays, graduations, promotions and just about any other significant event in their lives. The overwhelming majority of these balloons end up being tied by hand, a tedious and sometimes painful chore which becomes more of a burden as the number of balloons needing to be tied increases.
Most people will not mind tieing a few balloons now and then but when faced with the task of tieing perhaps dozens needed for a particular event most people will ask for assistance.
Tieing balloons over a sustained period of time can be quite painful. Sore fingers and pinched skin are the most common ailments. The balloon material becomes extremely tight when stretched making it difficult to loop a knot. Furthermore, the elastic material is adhesive to itself and to human skin creating inertia to movement across the finger.
Finally, tieing balloons by hand requires a fairly high degree of hand and finger dexterity. Elderly people, children and persons with arthritis have a difficult time tieing balloons.
In a society which values convenience and the avoidance of tedium, consumers need help tieing balloons. The consumer market clearly needs a clever, simple, low cost specialty tool designed specifically to make balloon tieing easier, faster and less painful. The present invention is directed to a device that has been designed to fill this need.
Currently, there are no known specialty tools specifically designed for tieing balloons for the household market. However, there are alternative and substitute products available, such in clips, disks and tape. None of these facilitate tieing the balloon neck which advantageously provides a more secure seal. In addition, we are aware of U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,906 ('906; issued 5 Feb. 1991) and to U.S. Pat. No. 5,039,142 ('142; issued 13 Aug. 1991) which are directed to knot-tieing tools. The tools described in these patents differ considerably from the device of the present invention.
The '906 patent is designed to mount directly on a standard helium or compressed air tank. This device is immovable once in place. It appears to assist in tieing a knot in the neck. The '142 patent illustrates a tool somewhat similar to an embodiment hereof. It is designed to be a hand-held knot tieing tool. It utilizes an elongated handle and a series of slots and holes to guide the neck through tieing.